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This blog serves my columns as an archive, a place to add footnotes,data sources and drafts of my weekly 550 word column for the Sky Hi News.(www.skyhidailynews.com) Often these drafts are posted on my Facebook page, The Muftic Forum.. To learn more about the posting subject, click onto the links at the end of the posting.Blog will be on vacation May 28-June 25 2018, with sporadic to no postings during that time.
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Sunday, September 30, 2012

GOP is shedding
crocodile tears for our kids .Republicans are using concern for our kids’ future to rationalize
all kinds of cuts to programs that already protect them. They do this in the name of not saddling them with debt. Gov.
Chris Christie of NJ on CBS “Face the Nation”September 30 tried out a new
slogan.He called for shared sacrifice. The problem with the GOP plans he supports is
the wealthy get the shares and the rest of us get to sacrifice, especially our
kids. Their plans do not add upto cut the deficit, anyway.

I have two sets of kids: one, our own late 40 early 50 year
olds and our grandchildren.The cuts to
programs proposed by the GOPare to
discretionary funds .They have not
provided specific details of program by program cuts because they just might turn off some
supporters .However, if they were made across
the board, it would require extreme cuts to any federal funding to states for
education,student loans and Pell
grants.How does that help my
grandchildren?

The GOP wants to push our children not yet 55 into
a changed Medicare plan that gives them no guarantee that the vouchers or the
alternative traditional Medicare will be funded to the extent that it will keep
up with the projected increase in health care costs .How does that help my
kids?

By repealing
Obamacare and shoving the costs to states to provide any coverage for those
with unable to afford premiums to the states they are giving us a plan that is a
non starter, given their strapped finances and the GOP Teaparty stranglehold on
statehouses and state legislatures. How does that help my kids who may fall on
hard times?

What aboutanyone with children with pre-existing
conditions? Mitt Romney claims he will
require health insurance for those who
already have continuous insurance. That does not help grandchildren with
pre-existing conditions or adultkids who had insurance but were laid off, or missed
a day changing jobs. . How does this
help our kids?

If they reach a stage
in their lives where their health costs and nursing home care costs exceed
their assets and they are impoverished, their safety net has been Medicaid. The
GOP wants to cut that by 30%.. How does that help our kids?

For these almost seniors, the GOP plans to repeal Obamacare
but in so doing, they reopen the prescription donut hole in , costing them in
today’s dollars around $600 per year.The repeal of Obamacare would take 8 years off the life of Medicare as we
know it . Instead, the GOP would voucherize and cap the growth of future federal
fund for Medicare, meaning that sometime in the future, co-pays will rise
dramatically.How does that help my
kids?

Republicans believe giving 5 trillion dollars in tax cuts to
the wealthy,increasing military
spending will stimulate economic growth, while slashing government spending on
discretionary spending,the deficit
will be cut.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Paul Ryan
plan that includes these proposalswill not decrease the deficit; it will
increase it. Romney has tried to
distance himself from Ryan’s plans, but he never detailed how making both
liberals and conservatives uneasy. Repealing Obamacareas the GOP proposes will not reduce the
deficit; it will increase it, too, per the CBO.

There are other ways to cut the deficitthat are less painful to the next generation
and actually work.Both the
Simpson-Bowles Commission came up with one and so did the Obama administration.
All Republicans in Congress voted againstboth.

So our kids will
sacrifice for a GOP plan that will not work to reduce their inherited debt?.That is no trade off; that’s just a bad deal.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

A
Facebook friend of mine sent me an posting claiming Obamacare would raised taxes on the middle
class. One fact checker called that “pants on fire”, another agreed
with the White House that it does not; the other looks at all of Obama’s tax
policies and also claims they do not.
All major three fact checkers
agree: such claims are not true.

I went to the Washington Post fact checker,
who pointed out that the tax credits and subsidies to the middle class far
exceeded taxes. Of course, if you define the middle class as those making over
$250,000, you might have a point. Glenn Kessler's conclusion:
"The health law, if it works as the nonpartisan government analysts
expect, will provide more tax relief than tax burden for middle-income
Americans. The White House chief of staff earns a rare Geppetto Checkmark
(true) for his remarks on “This Week.”
(Geppetto means the claim was true)www.washingtonpost.com

Claims
that Obamacare is the largest tax hikes in history gets the biggest lie Pants
on Fire from fact checker at politifact, www.politifact.com
"The ad calls the health care law "the largest tax increase in
history on the middle class." Actually, the law is not the largest tax
increase in history, and most of its taxes fall on the wealthy and the health
care industry.

Even if all of the taxes in the health care law fell on the middle class --
which they don’t -- the statement still wouldn’t be accurate.

For flagrant disregard of the facts, we rate this statement Pants on Fire!"

And more from the Annenberg Public Policy Center, FactCheck.org. This makes
3 major fact checkers in concurrence that Obamacare does not raise taxes on the
middle class, though this particular fact checker discusses a much broader
question.

Claims that Obamacare is the largest
tax hikes in history gets the biggest lie Pants on Fire from fact checker at
politifact, www.politifact.com
"The ad calls the health care law "the largest tax increase in
history on the middle class." Actually, the law is not the largest tax
increase in history, and most of its taxes fall on the wealthy and the health
care industry.

Even if all of the taxes in the health care law fell on the middle class --
which they don’t -- the statement still wouldn’t be accurate."

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Appearing in the print edition of the Sky Hi Daily News today was a letter to the editor from a local
reader who bemoaned all of those on the public dole, 69% increase on
food stamps, and some unemployment figures...among other complaints
about Obama. I always thought there was a racist element among those
who opposed Obama. Newt Gingrich coined Obama as the "foodstamp
President", widely interpreted as a dog whistle to the Southern Whites in a coded message that
black welfare queens were the prime abusers of food stamps.. The post
on my blog a few days ago regarding the hanging chair hung by a rope over a tree limb shows that racism
is present even in Loveland, Colorado. However, this letter to the
editor that appeared along side my column concluded with "America showed
how far we have come by voting in a black president. Now let's do
what's best for the country and our children and vote him out". The
reference to "black" was not included in the rest of the body of the
letter other than in unemployment statistics and no attempt to show
causal relationship of welfare increasing to anything, much less the
recession. The "black president" reference was hardly a coded message ;
it was just obviously an indication of the state of mind of the Grand
County, Colorado writer.. This is without a doubt the dark side of parts
of the electorate who oppose Obama's re-election. The
bemoaners of the blackness of food stamp recipients are also
ignorant. More whites receive food stamps than blacks, with each
category comprising less than 25% of the total.From a 2010 study by the US Department of Agriculture, here are the statistics.

The real Romney revealed himself with comments at a private fundraiser in Florida in May. I was not
surprised.I have heard similaropinions expressed since the 1950's, butin 2012 it is an insult to many, and itonce again dramatized Romney’s disconnect
with the reality of the lives today ofmost Americans.

His comments:“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for
the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him,
who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who
believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that
they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That
that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will
vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax...
my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should
take personal responsibility and care for their lives…”(Text source: the
Washington Post fact checker blog)

A question to everyone on Medicare and social security, or whose
parents can find health and nursing home care because of Medicaid when they outlived their assets : Did you take personal responsibility and care
for your lives? Since most of the recipients of Medicaid and food stamps are
kids and elderly, are they even able to take responsibility for their care? Did you participate or benefit from these
programs because you felt you were a
victim? Or did you participate because your income and savings would not
sustain you or your family?

Romney deceptively limitedhis figures to income taxes.According to the Congressional Budget Office all but 10% pay federal taxes in some form,
including payroll taxes and contributions
toward Medicare and Social Security.

So who do not pay income taxes? Per senior fellows in the Brookings and Urban
Institutes writing in the Washington Post: “About half of these
households don’t pay federal income tax simply because their incomes are low.
More than one-fifth are retirees who benefit from tax breaks for seniors,
including an exemption for most Social Security benefits. And another
one-seventh are working families with children whose income tax liability is
eliminated because of the child tax credit… or the child and dependent care
credit. Together, these three groups of taxpayers account for almost
90 percent of the households that pay no federal income tax.”

With these comments Romney brought
additional attention to his disconnect with the real life of most Americans.
His perspective is stuck in a 1950’s mind set whenwe could cover medical bills in chickens or even pay out of pocket; the medicine
practiced then was unencumbered by expensive life extendingmodern
technology..Dad could earn enough money
for mom to stay home and take care of their aging parents and provide child
care.The poor stayed poor, they could not go to college, and they were stuck
in an underclass until in the 60’s they exploded when they could not take it
anymore. .

To
backpeddle, Romney changed his tune.Now
he says he cares about the 100’%, but his and Paul Ryan’s plans
are not where his mouth is: They propose to cut Medicaid by 30%, Pell grants,
Head Start,and food stamps. Catholic
Bishops have called theseplans to cut
the poor’s safety net immoral. The plan to “save”Medicare would,privatizepart and eliminate the guarantee the federal contribution will cover
future costs..

To reduce the deficit is indeed an important goal, but the Romney and Ryan plans
are not the only way to do it.Plans
similar to the Simpson Bowles recommendations would inflict less pain on safety
net programs andmaintain Medicare as we
know it. Many alternatives are discussed at http://www.aarp.org/health/.

“SCOTT PELLEY: Does the government have a responsibility to provide
health care to the 50 million Americans who don’t have it today?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have
insurance, people — we — if someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their
apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance and take them to the
hospital and give them care. And different states have different ways of
providing for that care”.

Romney should know
better.That’s why he invented the
health care system in Massachusetts; it was a very expensive way to go.

The cost shift of
expensive ER care to the Hospital goes , not to the State, but to the already
insured and to the federal government’s programs for Medicare and
Medicaid.It is why we in the US pay 2
and a half times per person for health care than in other industrialized
countries. The shift, the cost absorbed by the already insured ads up to $1000
per family per year , and also accounts to the shortening of the life of
Medicare since it increases the general cost of health care,the services of which are reflected in the
costs of Medicare.That is why the
Simpson Bowles Debt Reduction Commission concluded that the cost of Medicare
and Medicaid would be reduced if Obamacare was retained and the repealing
Obamacare would add to the deficit and Obamacare would reduce it.

A person who treats the
ER as their primary care physician does not get any checkups, too, or preventative care..For major illness, usually the patient
arrives at the ER very sick and ends up having the most expensive care because
of theseriousness of their advanced condition…hospitalization,
surgery and end of life treatment.It is
no wonder that the US has one of the worst death rates in the industrialized
world.Those who have insurance get good
care; those who do not are more likely to die younger.The result is a very bad average.

We hear the GOP accusing
Obamacare taking $716 billion out of
Medicare.The inference is that the cuts
go into thin air or benefits are reduced.Wrong.About $250 billion is
ending the subsidy to private insurers for Medicare Advantage which, strangely
enough, is continuing without the subsidy. The private insurers were being paid
17% more to administer Medicare than what the government could do itself….and
it resulted in no advantage to senior care and the insurers got the only
advantage.

From an article written by
Sarah Kliff in the Washington Post, 8/14/22: “By 2010, the average Medicare Advantage
per-patient cost was117 percentof
regular fee-for-service. The Affordable Care Act gives those private plans a
haircut and tethers reimbursement levels to the quality of care administered,
and patient satisfaction.

The Medicare Advantage cut gets the
most attention, but it only accounts for about a third of the Affordable Care
Act’s spending reduction. Another big chunk comes from the hospitals. The
health law changed how Medicare calculates what they get reimbursed for various
services, slightly lowering their rates over time. Hospitals agreed to these
cuts because they knew, at the same time, they would likely see an influx of
paying patients with the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansion.

The rest of the Affordable Care
Act’s Medicare cuts are a lot smaller. Reductions to Medicare’s
Disproportionate Share Payments — extra funds doled out the hospitals that
see more uninsured patients — account for 5 percent in savings. Lower
payments to home health providers make up another 8.8 percent. ….It’s worth
noting that there’s one area these cuts don’t touch: Medicare benefits. The
Affordable Care Act rolls back payment rates for hospitals and insurers. It
does not, however, change the basket of benefits that patients have access to…”

That $716 in savings is
reflected in Medicare’s future costs and improvements to the Medicare system. The result: seniors will save on the average
of $600the a year since the Medicare donut hole for prescription drugs
will be covered by Obamacare, Medicare’s life is extended 8 years, and the deficit problem will get some relief.
Repealing Obamacare would eliminate all of these savings, reinstate the donut
hole , eliminate the savings to the
system, and continue providing the uninsured with very expensive health care.

(Sources for much of
this can be found at the Kaiser Family Foundation web site and at www.AARP.com; Much of this also is a repeat of my prior blog
postings with sources documented then)

About Me

Felicia Muftic is a political columnist with the Sky Hi Daily News, Grand County, Colorado. She writes on current events from a pragmatic, fact based, reasoned perspective.
Felicia has nearly 50 years of involvement in politics, finance,and consumer affairs as either a fly on the wall in international, national, state and local levels or a participant.
Parallel to all of this is intense involvement for over 50 years in the the political process, serving in both cabinet and staff in the administration of Mayor Federico Pena . Partially educated in Europe and married to physician-refugee from the Balkans, her interests are not confined to US domestic problems, but she also has a world view and experiences which are often reflected in her columns.
Felicia Muftic es un columnista político del diario Sky News Hola, Grand County, Colorado. Felicia tiene casi 50 años de participación en la política, las finanzas y de asuntos del consumidor, ya sea como una mosca en la pared en la internacional, nacional, estatal y local o de un participante. Para más información, visite www.mufticforum.com